Longitudes: news, updates and reportage from Latitudes, the Barcelona-based curatorial office

In conversation for the exhibition catalogue "Limits to Growth" by Nicholas Mangan (Sternberg Press, 2016)

Mon, Oct 31 2016

Photos: Latitudes.

After much anticipation, we are elated to see (and touch!) Latitudes' five-part interview with Nicholas Mangan as part of his exhibition catalogue "Nicholas Mangan. Limits to Growth" (Sternberg Press, 2016). The publication is designed by Žiga Testen and includes newly commissioned texts by Ana Teixeira Pinto and Helen Hughes, alongside illustrations of Mangan's work and historical source material.

The five-part interview weaves together a discussion around five of his recent works ‘Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World’ (2009), ‘A World Undone’ (2012), ‘Progress in action’ (2013), ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015) and his newest piece ‘Limits to Growth’ (2016) commissioned for this exhibition survey. Latitudes’ dialogue with Mangan, began around a research trip to Melbourne in 2014, and continued in the form of the public conversation event that took place at the Chisenhale Gallery, London, in 2015, as well as over Skype, email, snail mail and walks.

The publication release coincides with Mangan's eponimous exhibition survey which began in July in Melbourne's Monash University Museum of Art and just opened this past weekend in Brisbane's IMA. The show will further tour to Berlin's KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Summer 2017.

"Nicholas Mangan. Limits to Growth"
Publisher: Sternberg Press with the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne.
Editor: Aileen Burns, Charlotte Day, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Johan Lundh.
Texts: Latitudes, Helen Hughes, Ana Teixeira Pinto
Design: Žiga Testen;
October 2016, English;
17 x 24 cm, 246 pages + 2 inserts, edition of 1500;
40 b/w and 102 color ill., with color poster and postcard Softcover;
ISBN 978-3-95679-252-6;
30 Euros.

RELATED CONTENT:

Interview with Nicholas Mangan for his forthcoming catalogue ‘Limits to Growth’, 20 Abril 2016;
Cover Story, July 2015: Nicholas Mangan’s ‘Ancient Lights’
Locating Ancient Lights signs around London with Nicholas Mangan;
In conversation with the artist Nicholas Mangan at Chisenhale Gallery, London, 7 July 2015, 19h. 22 June 2015;
Interview 'What Lies Beneath' between Nicholas Mangan and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes, Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015
Max Andrews' of Latitudes feature article 'Landscape Artist', Frieze #172, June–August 2015.

Locating Ancient Lights signs around London with Nicholas Mangan

Tue, Jul 14 2015

Nicholas Mangan’s show “Ancient Lights” recently opened at London’s Chisenhale Gallery, where Latitudes had a conversation with the artist on 7 July. The title of the show refers to a long-established English planning law enshrining the “right to light” by restricting the construction of buildings that would block sunlight reaching the windows of neighboring properties. If the sun has shined through a window for more than twenty years, there is legal protection for it not to be blocked.

In the spirit of our tour project Incidents of Travel (which has involved artist-led explorations of Mexico City, Hong Kong, and soon San Francisco) on 3 July we set out with Nick to track down some of these esoteric signs in central London.

We started with a set of signs that – thanks to Wikipedia’s entry on the Right to light – are probably the best-known examples. The back windows of houses on Albemarle Way are visible from the Memorial Garden of the Priory Church of the Order of Saint John just off the Clerkenwell Road. (Here is a map of some Ancient Lights signs in London, if you know of more let us know!). We made our way on foot to a spot at the south end of Hatton Gardens (an address now notorious for the April 2015 heist) but failed to find the rumored sign there. It was a little early in the day for a pint at the nearby Ye Olde Mitre.

Heading in to Chinatown, we found ourselves scouring the bizarrely-named Horse & Dolphin Yard, a dead-end alleyway with a pagoda-like construction where several restaurants from Gerrard Street and Shaftesbury Avenue have there back entrances. We eventually spotted the sign, which appears to have been moved from its original location as it doesn’t mark any window, just a bare brick wall.

Nearby there is a cute sign above the diminutive Rupert Court, at the back of The Blue Posts pub. (If we were going to stop for a drink it would have to be somewhere far more thematically appropriate – the Sun Tavern in Covent Garden, The Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho or the Rising Sun in Bloomsbury, would hit the spot).

Later in the week we found the huge and typographically-distinguished Ancient Lights sign in Newman Passage, a little connecting street perhaps most famous for its starring role in the murderous opening scene of the film Peeping Tom (1960).

The more modest sign that can be seen next to the lamp of The Hope pub, just near Goodge Street tube station, is a palimpsest still bearing visible traces of an earlier sign underneath. Thus endeth the tour!

RELATED CONTENT:

Latitudes conversation with Nicholas Mangan on 7 July 2015 at Chisenhale Gallery, London;

Cover Story, July 2015: Nicholas Mangan’s ‘Ancient Lights’;

Max Andrews, Feature on Nicholas Mangan, 'Landscape Artist', Frieze, Issue 172, Summer 2015;

Mariana Cánepa Luna, 'What Lies Underneath', interview with Nicholas Mangan, Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015.

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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

In conversation with the artist Nicholas Mangan at Chisenhale Gallery, London, 7 July 2015, 19h.

Mon, Jun 22 2015

Nicholas Mangan, Still from 'Ancient Lights', 2014–5. Courtesy LABOR, Mexico City; Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland.

On July 7 at 19h Latitudes will lead a conversation with the Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan on the occasion of his solo show 'Ancient Lights' (3 July–23 August 2015) at Chisenhale Gallery. They will discuss his ongoing investigations into the relationship between energy and social transformation as well as his latest film installation premiered in the exhibition and powered entirely by on-site solar panels placed on the roof of the gallery building.

'Ancient Lights' is produced in partnership with Artspace, Sydney, where it will be presented as part of his solo exhibition, Other Currents, in September 2015.

Nicholas Mangan (1979) lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Recent exhibitions include 'Art in the Age of…', Witte de With, Rotterdam; 'Anthropocene Moment', Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (both 2015); 'Octopus', Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; 'Concrete', Monash Museum of Art, Melbourne; 'Melbourne Now', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (all 2014). He participated in the '2015 New Museum Triennial: Surround Audience', New York; 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre; and the 13th Istanbul Biennial (both 2013).

This event is free. Reserve a place via Chisenhale's Eventbrite.

RELATED CONTENT:

Interview 'What Lies Beneath' between Nicholas Mangan and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes, Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015.

Max Andrews' of Latitudes feature article 'Landscape Artist', Frieze #172, June–August 2015.

–
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).
Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.